Frank Raven singer The Voice UK reached the grand final as one of four finalists, but Cate McHugh took the title on ITV1. The result handed the £50,000 prize, a recording contract with Universal Music Group and a holiday to Universal Orlando Resort in Florida to the Team Tom Jones singer.
Cate McHugh, 31, from Llantwit Major, had already made her case in the blind audition with Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' track Die With A Smile. She said, “Walking out onto the stage for my blind audition is like no other stage that I've been on to date. TV isn't something I'm experienced in. I love gigging, I've been doing that for years. But that stage with the lights, it's just really different, really bright, and I couldn't see anything, so they walked me out to where I needed to be, and I was just hoping I was pointed in the right way.”
Four finalists, one audience vote
Frank Raven joined Monique Nicholson-Porter and Naná Aldrin-Quaye in the last four, with the finalists split across Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones, Kelly Rowland and will.i.am. The format left the result in the hands of the studio audience present during filming, not viewers at home, and that drew criticism online while the broadcast was still running.
Cate McHugh also said, “Knowing that the judges were in front of me, and that there might be a turn, I knew that if anything happened, I wasn't going to be able to see that it had happened. So there was a little bit of me that was pulled out of the moment, that was just thinking like, 'what are you going to do if something happens? Am I going to know?' A bit strange because with me, it really is a blind audition.” That is the kind of detail this show rarely gets right on television: the contestant who cannot see the turn still has to trust the room to tell the story.
Cardiff to the final
Cate McHugh began busking in Cardiff city centre at 16 and later lost her vision to Stargardt disease at 22. She said, “Having Sir Tom Jones tell you that he wants you on his team, as a born and bred Welsh singer is insane. Because, I mean, his career has been mad and constant, and he's still brilliant. So, knowing that I was going to get to work with him was just like, yeah, it's good.”
Frank Raven’s path now ends with a place in the final four, which is the real marker here: he reached the stage where the competition became a single-night audience decision, and that is the line between promising run and winner’s circle. Sir Tom Jones is departing the show after this series, so the next headline for the format belongs to the coaches, while Raven’s own result is already on the record.
